To bring readers up to speed, the above question stems from two reports: In July, a group of California researchers reported a modest increase in the risk that a child would develop autism if his or her mother took selective serotonin uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during pregnancy. The results were based on a very small sample of children exposed to antidepressants during the time their mothers were pregnant—just 20 children with autism compared to 50 without autism. This past month, another team of scientists reported that rats fed SSRIs as newborn pups exhibited abnormalities in brain development.

Given the great hunger for information about what causes autism, both studies made headlines. Unfortunately, the media stories may have served to alarm without putting these early and inconclusive scientific findings into perspective.

First and foremost, research with animals and investigations looking at a small number of cases are both important for guiding larger, more informative studies. But in and of themselves, these two particular studies don’t come close to reaching the bar at which scientific evidence is reliable enough to warrant a change in behavior. We feel this is particularly true of important medical decisions such as the need to treat depression, which can be a serious and life-threatening illness.

Take, for instance, the small number of children in the California study. This small “sample size” increases the likelihood that the results were due to chance or other unrelated factors. In other words, they may not represent real differences in risk. It is very common in science for such preliminary findings to vanish when researchers repeat the analysis with a larger, more “statistically significant” number of cases.

In addition, among women taking SSRIs, there may be other, hidden factors responsible for raising autism risk among their future children. For example, we know that anxiety is common among persons with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In fact, many of those who learn, as adults, that they have an ASD do so when they seek treatment for anxiety and/or related depression. A common type of medicine prescribed in these instances is SSRIs. We also know that ASDs tend to run in families. So it may be that family genetics—not SSRIs—produced the above-mentioned finding of a modest increase in the prevalence of autism among children whose mothers took these antidepressants during pregnancy.

And the rat study? While it’s useful for guiding the focus of further research, we simply can’t extrapolate results from rats to humans.

Finally, we worry about the consequences of women going off antidepressants when they truly need these medications. Certainly if a woman is pregnant or trying to become pregnant, she should discuss all her medicines with her physician—so that with guidance she can weigh the risks and benefits of continuing or discontinuing one or more of them. Certainly, a woman’s untreated depression can itself pose a danger to her pregnancy or newborn child. The bottom line: If you have concerns regarding your medications during pregnancy, discuss them with your physician, who can help you make the best decision for you and your family.